England's hopefuls face anxious wait

They say form is temporary while class is permanent. Well - they do when they're like most members of England's batting line-up and struggling to put a run in the book.

Spotting a member of the Test team's established top order filling his boots this season has been like looking for an Aussie with an inferiority complex.

While players such as Sussex's Michael Yardy, Lancashire's Jason Gallian and those ghosts of Ashes past, Graeme Hick and Mark Ramprakash, are scarcely putting a foot wrong, Vaughan and co struggled to get their feet moving in county cricket.

So Yardy, Gallian, Hick and Ramprakash for England this weekend? Er, no.

Chairman David Graveney and fellow selectors Duncan Fletcher, Rod Marsh and Geoff Miller face a couple of tough decisions and their deliberations will take even longer if the medical reports on Graham Thorpe's back is less optimistic than those concerning Simon Jones and Ashley Giles. But the names of Marcus Trescothick, Andrew Strauss, Vaughan, Andrew Flintoff and Geraint Jones can be inked in now for Thursday week's First Test against Bangladesh at Lord's.

The awkward bit for the selectors is filling in the gaps, given that Rob Key, Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen are all candidates worthy of inclusion.

If Thorpe is unfit, two of them will play but, even then, it won't be an easy decision.

Pietersen batted so brilliantly while making three one-day centuries in South Africa three months ago that the clamour for his elevation to Test status was understandable.

Since then, though, the 24-year-old has cooled considerably, gathering a mere 89 runs from his first five championship innings for Hampshire - 61 of them coming from a single knock.